Media Teleconference with Report Authors and Experts to be Held Next Monday

Media Teleconference with Report Authors and Experts to be Held Next Monday

Washington, D.C. – On Monday, June 4, Rights Working Group will release a new report, The NSEERS Effect: A Decade of Racial Profiling, Fear, and Secrecy, which documents the ongoing impacts of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), a long discredited and discriminatory program launched by the federal government in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The report recommends a number of needed reforms to mitigate damage caused by the program.

The NSEERS Effect documents the ways in which individuals and families have been harmed by NSEERS as well as the Obama administration’s failure to provide redress to individuals impacted by the program. The report also makes a number of recommendations including dismantling the regulatory framework of NSEERS and removing the residual penalties caused by this program by setting aside immigration or criminal penalties against individuals who complied or failed to comply with the program.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), who was formerly project director for the Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy. Allen will give an overview of the NSEERS program, which will include a historical analysis.

Jumana Musa, deputy director of Rights Working Group, which co-authored the report, will serve as moderator of the call will also discuss the report’s findings and take questions.

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Clinical Professor and Director at the Center for Immigrants’ Rights, which also co-authored the report, will discuss the report’s findings and take questions.

Dr. James Zogby, president and founder of the Arab American Institute, an outspoken critic of NSEERS who was interviewed for this report to highlight the remaining concerns by the community.

Denyse Sabagh, Partner and Head of Immigration Practice Group at Duane Morris. Sabagh represented individuals impacted by NSEERS and was also interviewed for this report to comment from the perspective of an immigration lawyer trying to navigate the program on behalf of clients.

The NSEERS Effect was prepared by Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights (Center) on behalf of the Rights Working Group. The Center is an immigration policy clinic where law students work on innovative policy and advocacy projects primarily through the representation of immigrant advocacy organizations.